Obama, Medvedev Sign Historic Nuke Pact

Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev today agreed to trim their nuclear arsenals to the lowest level in 50 years, reports the New York Times. If ratified, the treaty would limit each country to 1,500 strategic warheads. The Treaty of Moscow, signed in 2002, limited them to 2000 apiece. Each nation would also be limited to 800 total land-, air- and sea-based launchers, down from 1,600 permitted by a treaty signed in 1991.

Though the leaders did not agree on American plans to build an anti-missile shield in Europe, the accord is seen as good news for US-Russia relations, strained since the war between Russia and Georgia in the summer of 2008. (More Russia stories.)